The director of an asbestos removal and labour hire company has been jailed for three years in what a judge has called serious offending and the worst of its kind to come before the Christchurch District Court in the last 20 years.

Melanie Jill Tatana, also known as Melanie Jill Smith, was sentenced in the Christchurch District Court on October 30 and jailed for three years for what the Judge described as a case involving the wilful diversion of funds rather than business insolvency.

Tatana ran the company, Asia Pacific Group Ltd (APG), employing around 60 people. Between April 2019 and September 2022, APG was required to deduct PAYE from workers’ wages and pay it to Inland Revenue.

On 63 occasions between August 2019 and September 2022 APG failed to pay the full amounts of $1,602,864.17.

As a result, Tatana was charged with 63 counts of aiding and abetting APG to knowingly take PAYE from workers’ wages and not pay it on to Inland Revenue.

An analysis of APG’s bank accounts showed that more than $800,000 had been diverted for Tatana’s personal use.

Further significant funds had been diverted to Tatana’s personal bank account and Tatana’s daughter’s bank account which Tatana was also using at the time.

Between April and May 2022 APG also received over $2.2 million in COVID-19 wage subsidies along with $107,500.00 in governmental resurgence support payments.

Tatana was the sole director of APG at the time of the offending, was the signatory on the bank accounts and dealt with Inland Revenue in relation to PAYE debt.

Tatana was given several warnings, but the non-payment continued and in May 2021 she was told APG was under investigation for failure to pay PAYE.

In his sentencing, District Court Judge Michael Crosbie agreed with Inland Revenue that there was a lack of remorse shown by Tatana and pointed to the need for his sentence to denounce and deter behaviour of this kind.

Judge Crosbie added the belief that government departments can be seen as an easy target must be countered in the sentence for Tatana.

He also noted that if everyone had done what Tatana did, we would be in state of chaos.

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